Walking In Someone's Shoes: Paul Komadina On His Short "Abduction"
Paul Komadina is an award-winning filmmaker from Perth, Western Australia. He has directed projects for the big and small screen, including a micro budget feature film (that played festivals around the world), numerous shorts, a web series, children’s television, dozens of award-winning music videos and over a hundred commercials. His passion is using genre to thrill audiences while revealing the human condition. His latest short, Abduction, focuses on a woman who tries to retrace her steps after waking up in the middle of nowhere.
After waking up in a field with no memory of how she got there, Mathilda reckons strange visions and marks on her body with the trail of judgement and cruelty that follows.
This film won the 2020 CinefestOZ Audience Choice Award at Cinefest Oz and will be screening at the Oscar qualifying Atlanta Film Festival in September. We had the pleasure of chatting with Paul about the film, its origins, using genre to tell important stories, and much much more!
How did the concept for Abduction originate?
Our writer, Frances Elliott, was out in a bar one night and had her drink spiked. She went through quite an ordeal, and it was compounded by the fact that a lot of people around her either didn’t believe her or even blamed her for leaving her drink lying around. She took that experience and dealt with it by writing this science fiction story of a girl who loses time and has to retrace her steps, all the while being judged by those around her. She sent me the script and asked me to direct it. I jumped at it.
What about Frances Elliott’s script resonated most with you?
Well, obviously I knew what she had been through and I found what she had written incredibly touching. I think everyone has been doubted by those around them at some point in their lives, and it can feel both devastating and destabilizing. I really felt for the main character in the script, and I believed it was a story that was important to tell. On top of that, it was an intriguing tale with some great visual and aural potential.
What excited you the most about blending the social drama of the piece with heavy sci-fi elements?
Whether it’s consumerism in Dawn of the Dead or racism in Get Out, I find genre a really interesting way to talk about social issues. It can be a way of sneaking up on a subject. There are a lot of fascinating and scary parallels between date-rape drug experiences and the phenomena of alien abductions (whether you believe in them or not), and it allowed us to talk about victim blaming and the lack of credulity society can have towards women in a slightly removed context. This, of course, is something that feels especially relevant right now. On a purely aesthetic level, we were able to create a really visceral experience that hopefully reaches people in a subconscious way.
What’s more terrifying: aliens or technology?
Hahaha, great question! I’m optimistic that if an extra-terrestrial society has survived long enough for us to make contact with them, they must be doing something right and are hopefully benevolent. Right now, the siloing and division that social media is creating in the world is way more scary. So, if you want a simple answer: technology.
The cinematography is truly stunning. How did you get connected with Lewis Potts, and how did the two of you nail down the film’s look?
Thank you, we worked hard to create something unique. Perth is a small town and anyone who is doing interesting work, like Lewis does, you find out about very quickly. He shoots a lot of music videos and has a very free and beautiful style. I wanted a film that followed along very closely with our protagonist’s perception and I felt he’d be right. I can often be a bit rigid in my visual approach. I like to tell stories in cuts; whereas, he likes to follow and evolve shots. I think the clash of those two sensibilities created something interesting. Other elements we discussed were a heavy use of pinks and blues, as the story is about gender, and also trying to make something that, while being out in the open, feels very claustrophobic.
How did you find your terrific cast?
Our lead, Alexandra Nell, is similarly someone around town that I just knew about. She works a lot and is super talented and dedicated. She was our first choice hands down. Kyle Barrett I had worked with two or three times before. I found him while casting a previous short with the help of WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) where he was studying at the time. So again, I asked him and he came aboard. Megan Hollier I had auditioned for a commercial, which didn’t work out at the time, but I had always remembered her. Coincidentally, when we were shooting, Alex and Megan were actually housemates so there’s a little layer of art imitating life going on there which tickles me.
What drew you to the visual arts? How did you get into directing?
As a kid, I would make little movies with friends’ camcorders. It was just fun to play and experiment at the time. I did media in high school and loved it and got A’s but at the time I didn’t really see a career path in it and ended up doing a degree in Computer Science and Multimedia rather than film when I went to university, mainly because it just came easy to me. It was a few years later, staring in front of a computer screen when I just suddenly had this feeling that I was doing the wrong thing. This epiphany literally struck me like a lightning bolt. Film! I went back to study film as fast as I could. It’s kind of bizarre but it was as simple as that. I haven’t looked back since. What I do love about it though, is that it’s this intersection of so many disciplines; music, photography, writing, acting, costume, etc. You get to play with it all. I can’t imagine anything more exciting than that.
What films or filmmakers have inspired you, your style, or your approach to telling a story?
I’ll talk specifically to Abduction; otherwise, we’ll be here all day, as I truly love all periods of cinema and go through massive phases of exploring different sub-genres, movements and filmmakers. In my work, I really try to do what’s right for each script rather than apply what might be my own personal “style.” In this case, the story has fantastical elements, so I felt it was important to keep things as grounded as possible. Black Swan was a big influence as far as following very closely with the protagonist, quite literally, while also being narratively unreliable as to what their reality actually is. Raw was an amazing French cannibal film that both Frances [Elliot] and I frothed over. There was something about the sadness and the body horror of that film that found its way into ours. Under the Skin was a big influence tonally and sonically. There’s maybe a bit of Lynch in the opening sequence with the droning noise and the slow strobe lights. With this one, I really wanted to put the audience in the protagonist’s head and not offer too much in the way of objective explanation for what’s going on. It’s really all about the experience.
What do you hope audiences take away from the film?
Well, I’d like people to have an emotional reaction and be taken on a journey but ultimately, empathy. Roger Ebert famously described cinema as “a machine that generates empathy” and I think he’s right. For me, one of the big reasons stories exist is for us to have a way to walk in someone else’s shoes for a bit. If our little story makes people a little more open to listening to people they would normally doubt, then we’ve done some good.
Do you have any future projects that you can share with us?
I’m working on an outback horror, a feature, but it’s still in development. Watch this space!
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!